Friday Fun With Coffee! #11 Night Owls.

Good morning and Happy Friday to all of you! It is definitely a chilly morning, with a temperature of 5F (-15C). It is also cloudy and very windy, that wind makes it feel much colder as well. I do not think I will be sitting outside with the birds today, unless the sun shows up again. There was also another inch (2.5cm) of new snow out there this morning too. Further east of us they are getting a huge snowstorm and I am certainly glad we did not get hit with it.

I am still hoping for an early spring and it could happen, though the long range forecast is saying a late spring. Sigh. The small birds are busy this morning, and the blue jays, but no grosbeaks yet. I did not see any pine grosbeaks yesterday, so perhaps the last of them finally decided to follow the others and head north. They are a true winter bird and seldom stay here past the middle of March. They like cold weather.

First on our list of colorful birds is the Blue Jay, this is Baxter.

I am showing a few of our colorful birds today. There are a lot more however. This being Friday, I am supposed to share a story from the past, so here is another from a number of years ago. Krissy, a friend of mine, enjoyed her first night looking for owls, so she wanted to go with me again. It was a much nicer night this time and we went to a different area than before. We walked around through the forest while I called for owls.

It was a full moon which helped to illuminate the forest around us. It also created some amazing shadows among the trees. Krissy did not like some of those shadows however, they were too scary. So I began talking about different things we were seeing to take her mind off the shadows. In one spot we found an old road, so I started driving along until we came to a beaver pond which covered the road. I did not want to drive through the water at night, so we parked there and walked around the pond while I called for owls again.

This is the Common Grackle, his name is Grover.

It was a beautiful and warm spring night. Finally an owl called back and soon it was sitting in a tree not far from us. It was a Barred owl, one of our largest owls. It was sitting nicely in the moonlight, so we got a good look at him. Nothing else around so we drove to a small lake. We walked around a bit but did not hear any owls. So we sat by the lake for a while. The moonlight was reflecting in that lake so beautifully, wish I had a camera to take a picture of that.

The lake was perfectly calm too. I called again and this time a Great Gray owl returned my call. That is our largest owl and one that is considered rare in most of its range. They are still fairly common in our area. It flew into a tree next to us as we sat on a rock looking at the lake. The owl was only about 10 feet from us and easy to see in the moonlight. That one really got Krissy excited.

And our Pine Grosbeak.

I guess he decided we were not owls, so he left. Only two owls that night, but they were nice ones. We also got to enjoy 4 loons having fun on that lake after the owl left. They called and laughed, running on the water, flapping around and splashing. Then two flew off, heading back to their own lake most likely. Most of the smaller lakes around here have one pair of loons on them, and they visit back and forth.

And, the Evening Grosbeak.

We stayed until the sun rose, and it was a beautiful sunrise too. We never encountered any dangerous type animals, that only seems to happen when I am by myself. Naturally. Oh well. It was another fun night anyway. I hope you all have a wonderful Friday and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.